Re: UPDATING readability

From: Matthias Andree <ma_at_dt.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de>
Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 14:02:53 +0200
David Syphers <dsyphers_at_u.washington.edu> writes:

> Okay... this would be grammatically correct. However, I'm curious why the 
> original poster believes the current version to be unclear, since it is also 
> grammatically correct. (Omitting "that" or "which" at the beginning of a 
> restrictive relative clause is very common in English.)

Yes, but this is pretty special to English; I know three other languages
and English is the only one that leaves the _necessary_ relative clause
(as in this case) without pronouns or other distinction. I'd agree that
is correct, and from a knowledgable point of view, it is desirable to
omit the commas and the "which", but I understand that less skilled
non-native speakers may have difficulties understanding the whole
paragraph.

-- 
Matthias Andree

Encrypted mail welcome: my GnuPG key ID is 0x052E7D95 (PGP/MIME preferred)
Received on Sun Oct 17 2004 - 10:02:58 UTC

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Wed May 19 2021 - 11:38:17 UTC